Saturday Morning Fun at the Be Kids Event

May 18, 2015

Last week, I saw on the preschool’s notice board that there’s a hands-on event organized for little kids over the weekend on 16 and 17 May. It’s called BE KIDS – The Ultimate Experiential Learning Expedition. The event was organized for tots to 12 years old kids and it was held at SCAPE Youth Park in Orchard. I was thinking perhaps I could bring my boy there.

On Friday, instead of the usual me who picked up our boy from the preschool, my husband went to pick him up. Upon reaching home, the boy excitedly showed me a flyer on the above mentioned event and told me that his teacher said everyone was going for the event! I’m sure his teacher didn’t say that, and it’s more along the line of informing parents of the event and encouraging parents to bring their children for the event. ;)

On Saturday morning, my husband went off to work. I was still wondering if I would bring Kaden to the kids event on my own. It was hot and sunny that morning and the idea of taking a bus to the Orchard area with him wasn’t that appealing. Furthermore, we would have to hurry over to my parent-in-laws’ place for lunch afterwards. Well, I decided to go ahead with him.

The Very First Booth – Sensory Experience

We reached at about 11.40am. There were few people and it’s a good timing after all, since Kaden didn’t have to queue or squeeze among kids to try out different activities. I wasn’t sure how game he was in trying out things though. But he was! Right at the very first booth which aimed to create a sensory experience for the kids, Kaden quickly joined the lady who invited him to throw and catch ball.

Then he had a go with walking on two little plastic buckets attached with handles. He was supposed to stand on the buckets, one foot atop a bucket, used his hands to pull the two handles attached to the bucket to aid him in “walking” on the foam mat. He wasn’t very successful at the first few steps but with some encouragement and a bit of hand holding from me, he started to “walk” around a little. He fell down once, got up, and tried a little more.

Next he ran over to the counter where kids and parents could try to fix something up using long, thin tubes and connectors. The same lady asked if we would like to try to continue with a spaceship that was half done. My boy tried connecting a tube to the connector but couldn’t get it on. I realized it does require a bit of effort which might be a little tricky for little hands. In the end, I was the one fixing and connecting. Very soon, he got distracted and wanted to venture to elsewhere.

Toddler Play Pen with Ball Pond

At the next booth, which was also another sensory play area, Kaden promptly removed his strapped sandals, climbed over and tossed himself into the inflatable play area. He tried to “swim” in the pool filled with balls, threw balls through the hoop on the inflatable sea’s mouth, slid down the mini plastic slide and rode on a plastic rocker.

Upon my suggestion, he crawled into one of the bouncy stalls and started to jump about. The look of joy on his face clearly indicated his enjoyment at this booth.

As there were other booths to be explored, I asked him to put on his sandals and leave the inflatable play pen.

We walked pass a music play area, and Kaden was asked to join a group of kids playing drums with a music instructor. In less than 5 minutes, my boy was out and putting on his sandals quickly. He told me it was too noisy for him and I chuckled.

He who loves making lot of noise himself, was complaining that the drum playing was too noisy for him! Looks like he’s not very attracted by the musical instruments segment.

First Encounter with Aikido

The next area that he ventured into was the Aikido booth. No kids were seen and Kaden was given undivided attention to Aikido introduction by a young female instructor.

I saw Kaden listened to instructions and try to follow or do the movements requested by the instructor. He jumped from hoola hoop to hoola hoop holding onto a ball, sat in a kneeling position and tried to fall backwards several times to avoid being hit by a foam bat slowly hitting towards him, and I thought, this is actually pretty good training for him to hone his motor skills while having fun.

I didn’t sign him up for the Aikido trial lesson, but it might be something I could look into.

The Big Inflatable Bouncer!

While walking towards the bouncy castle that was stationed towards the end of the event area, I was stopped by a young guy promoting mattress cleaning service to rid the mattresses of dust mites. He tried to give me a free gift of a biscuit container or a piggy bank but the condition was that I would have to sign up for a free first time cleaning service. I was kind of distracted by Kaden who was attracted by the bouncy castle and I was only half paying attention to the sales talk.

In the end, I apologized and had to go with my little one who was getting a little impatient. So the last activity stop was the bouncy castle.

Kaden certainly didn’t need any urging from me, and straight away crawled into the big, inflatable castle that houses a basketball hoop, a tunnel, a maze of horizontal and vertical bars, and a plunging slide.

You know, whenever I’m to see these big inflatable bouncers, I too wished that I had played in these as a kid… while I didn’t but I could imagine the sheer joy of just bouncing off these inflatable bouncers. I just let the little boy immersed in the fun of playing in this bouncy castle till I forgot to take any pictures of it.

About 15 minutes later, I had to ask him to leave as we were running late and had to travel to my parent-in-laws’ place for lunch. But not before the little boy explored the super cute vintage Volkswagon and had me buy him a cotton candy in a bag.

I felt a sense of accomplishment that I managed to bring my boy to this kids event on my own, albeit it’s a short one for less than two hours. It brought a smile to my face when I saw how much he enjoyed himself and tried out various activities.Let him be a kid and do fun kid things! :)

When we left, the skies darkened and that’s when the first photo right at the top was taken. It’s been good timing for us, as we didn’t catch the rain.

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